The 'disclosure' Link Relation Type
draft-yevstifeyev-disclosure-relation-02

[Ballot discuss]
The Gen-ART Review by Martin Thomson on 17-Dec-2011 raised a
  serious question that deserves further discussion.  He questions
  whether the IETF should publish the document at all.
  >
  > The semantics of the relation type are quite clear, though the
  > introduction does not make a particularly compelling case for an RFC.
  > The registration requirements of RFC 5988 require little more than the
  > creation of a specification; that specification could be created
  > anywhere (say, in [W3C-PUBRULES]).  I find the motivations described
  > in the introduction to be not compelling.
  >
  In response, the author suggests that an Informational RFC is the
  ideal way to meet the requirements in RFC 5988.  Martin was not
  swayed by this suggestion.

[Ballot comment]
1. The Introduction (section 1) discusses a single use case for the
new link relation type: meeting W3C documentation requirements. This gives the
impression that this draft is written for serving W3C purposes only.  I don't
think that this is the case, but there is not indication of other purposes in
the draft.  Please clarify that W3C documents are just an example use case and
that there are many others. Mentioning a few other use cases is probably not a
bad idea.  One obvious use case may be links to IPR disclosures on IETF tools
pages.

2. In the IANA Consideration section please be explicit that the registry to be extended is the Link Relation Type registry.

[Ballot comment]
I support the discusses, in particular the concern about pure patents vs. other general purpose IPR. The latter is the one that we use for IETF, for instance.

[Ballot comment]
- I think the MUST in section 2 is superfluous. s/MUST represent/represents

- Though I agree with Dan that some more discussion of applicability might be interesting, I do not think it is necessary to include. The document does not tightly define "patent disclosure" or "IPR disclosure", and I don't think it should. Any particular group using this construct may decide that pending patents or patent applications are things that they want to point to, and in the current document they are allowed to. The document can explicitly say that, but I don't think it needs to.

[Ballot discuss]
The Gen-ART Review by Martin Thomson on 17-Dec-2011 raised a
  serious question that deserves further discussion.  He questions
  whether the IETF should publish the document at all.
  >
  > The semantics of the relation type are quite clear, though the
  > introduction does not make a particularly compelling case for an RFC.
  > The registration requirements of RFC 5988 require little more than the
  > creation of a specification; that specification could be created
  > anywhere (say, in [W3C-PUBRULES]).  I find the motivations described
  > in the introduction to be not compelling.
  >
  In response, the author suggests that an Informational RFC is the
  ideal way to meet the requirements in RFC 5988.  Martin was not
  swayed by this suggestion.

[Ballot comment]
Moved from discuss to no-objection since this will come around
again and who needs a spare discuss;-)

Former discuss:

On Dec 26th the author suggested a substantive change [1] so I
don't know whether what I've read is final or not. Maybe this is
not ready?

  [1] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg71211.html

Former comment text:

This seems almost harmless. (It'd be totally harmless if it didn't
add to the IPR industry in a very, very minor way;-)  The writeup
says that W3C feedback will be sought during IETF LC - did that
happen and were they (as the ostensbile users of this) ok with it?

Examples like patent.gov seem like a bad idea as do "almost"
realistic patent numbers.  Suggest either using example.org style
stuff or else URIs for real but expired patents.

There were a bunch of IETF LC mails on this (mostly suggested nits
from Julian Reschke) that looked like they'd be worth fixing. (And
the author appeared to agree too.)

[Ballot comment]
1. The purpose of the draft is defining a the semantics of a new link relationship type.  This is done in section 2. But the four lines of text that should serve this purpose rather confuse me:

> 2. 'disclosure' Link Relation Type
>
>    Whenever the 'disclosure' relation is defined, the target IRI MUST
>    either

What does precisely mean "Whenever the disclosure relation is defined"?
It is defined in this document.  The sentence should rather state something like "Whenever the relation type attribute is used with value 'disclosure'".

>    (1) designate a list of patent disclosures, or
>
>    (2) refer to a particular patent disclosure made with respect to the
>        material being referenced by context IRI.

Why does (1) designate and (2) refer to?  Why is there a difference?
Where is the difference explained?  What are the semantics of "designating a list of patent disclosures".

2. In the IANA Consideration section please be explicit that the registry to be extended is the Link Relation Type registry.

3. Abstract:
>    This document specifies the 'disclosure' Link Relation Type.  It
>    designates a list of patent disclosures or a particular patent
>    disclosure itself made with respect to material for which such
>    relation type is specified.

I had to read this two times until I could parse the second sentence correctly.  Less cryptic wording would be appreciated, particularly

in the abstract that should readers allow to quickly get an idea of the content.

I would suggest removing "itself" from the abstract, but I'm not a native speaker.

The first sentence says "this document specifies the new type".
The last line says "for which the type is specified".  This is confusing.
In both cases the "type" is "specified" but with different meanings.
In the first case it is indeed the specification of the type.
In the second case the type is assigned to (not specified for) "material".
Suggestion: replace "specified" in last line.


4. Section 1 (Introduction), first sentence: see comments on abstract


5.  Section 1 (Introduction), second paragraph, line 1:
"Active use of 'disclosure' relation type has been identified."
  - What is "active use" compared to just "use"?
  - Why "identified"? What is "identification of use"?
    You may want to replace "identified" by "observed" or something similar.


6.  Section 1 (Introduction), line 4:
Suggestion: "defines" -> "mandates"


7.  Section 1 (Introduction), last line:
"separate" -> "multiple"


8. Section 3 (examples), last example:
This example uses potentially real domain names:
patent.gov, ipr.su, ftp.legal.va.  They should be replaced with domain names reserved for examples such as example.com, example.net, and example.org, see RFC 2606.

[Ballot discuss]
This DISCUSS and COMMENT is based in part on the  OPS-DIR review performed by Juergen Quittek.

1.  "Patent disclosure" is W3C terminology. The related term used in the IETF is "IPR disclosure".  I would object the document to be published without a clear statement about the applicability of the new link relation type to IPR disclosures.

2. This document is very short and most of the text deals with W3C document requirements and HTML examples.  More important would be discussing the the applicability of the new link relation type in more detail:  Is it applicable to granted patents only or to patent proposals (pending patents as well? What about other kinds of IPR, such as industrial design rights?  I think they should all be covered. At least the document should be clear about these issues.

3. The Introduction (section 1) exclusively discusses a single use case for the new link relation type: meeting W3C documentation requirements. This gives the impression that this draft is written for serving W3C purposes only.  I don't think that this is the case, but there is not indication of other purposes in the draft.  Please clarify that W3C documents are just an example use case and that there are many others. Mentioning a few other use cases is probably not a bad idea.  One obvious use case may be links to IPR disclosures on IETF tools pages.

[Ballot comment]
I agree with the discuss positions, particularly the concern that the document is not ready for IESG evaluation.

It is hard to see that this document is urgent. Might I suggest that the LC comments be addressed and IESG evaluation restarted at a later date.

[Ballot discuss]
It is not clear to me why this is defined to indicate *only* patents (as it is currently) or to indicate intellectual property claims more generally (e.g. patent applications in-process are not patents).

[Ballot discuss]
AFAICS, new IANA registrations require a specification (this document)
and expert review. Have the experts looked at this request yet? I don't
see anything in the Write-up.

---

Last Call discussions seem to be still active, and I do not think we
should approve this document until all issues have been successfully
resolved.

I suspect the shepherding AD should move this onto a later telechat.

[Ballot comment]
This seems almost harmless. (It'd be totally harmless if it didn't
add to the IPR industry in a very, very minor way;-)  The writeup
says that W3C feedback will be sought during IETF LC - did that
happen and were they (as the ostensbile users of this) ok with it?

Examples like patent.gov seem like a bad idea as do "almost"
realistic patent numbers.  Suggest either using example.org style
stuff or else URIs for real but expired patents.

There were a bunch of IETF LC mails on this (mostly suggested nits
from Julian Reschke) that looked like they'd be worth fixing. (And
the author appeared to agree too.)

[Ballot discuss]
On Dec 26th the author suggested a substantive change [1] so I
don't know whether what I've read is final or not. Maybe this is
not ready?

  [1] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg71211.html

Upon approval of this document, IANA will register the following Link
Relation Type at http://www.iana.org/assignments/link-relations

Name: disclosure
Description: refers to a list of patent disclosures or a particular
patent disclosure itself made with respect to material for which
'disclosure' relation is specified
Reference: [RFCXXXX]

State changed to In Last Call from Last Call Requested.

The following Last Call Announcement was sent out:

From: The IESG <iesg-secretary@ietf.org>
To: IETF-Announce <ietf-announce@ietf.org>
Reply-To: ietf@ietf.org
Subject: Last Call: <draft-yevstifeyev-disclosure-relation-00.txt> (The 'disclosure' Link Relation Type) to Informational RFC


The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider
the following document:
- 'The 'disclosure' Link Relation Type'
  <draft-yevstifeyev-disclosure-relation-00.txt> as an Informational RFC

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
ietf@ietf.org mailing lists by 2012-01-06. Exceptionally, comments may be
sent to iesg@ietf.org instead. In either case, please retain the
beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

Abstract


  This document specifies the 'disclosure' Link Relation Type.  It
  designates a list of patent disclosures or a particular patent
  disclosure itself made with respect to material for which such
  relation type is specified.




The file can be obtained via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-yevstifeyev-disclosure-relation/

IESG discussion can be tracked via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-yevstifeyev-disclosure-relation/


No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.